Once you publish an agent and point an initiative at it, conversations run without you. This guide explains what the agent is actually doing at each moment, so nothing you see in a transcript comes as a surprise.
How a conversation starts
A conversation begins when a prospect triggers one of your initiatives, for example by commenting on a post or sending a DM with your keyword. For comment triggers, the prospect first receives your opt-in message with a button under it, and the sales conversation only starts once they tap it. Anything they type before tapping is saved to the conversation record, but the agent waits for the tap. If you configured a delay on the initiative, it runs after the tap, not before the opt-in message.
The three stages
Every conversation moves through the stages you saw on the Sales Flow tab:
- Intro: the agent opens with your greeting and eases into the first question.
- Qualification: it works through your steps, one question at a time, saving each answer to its field. A loose but genuine answer to a written question is taken and the agent moves on; it only asks again when the reply was not really an answer, or when a typed field like a number or an email did not get a usable value. If they answer a later question early, it does not ask twice. Your flow actions fire here, branching, qualifying, or disqualifying based on answers. See Capturing lead info in your sales flow.
- Conversion: once qualification is done, the agent moves to your goal: booking the call or closing the sale. See How booking and checkout work in DMs.
The agent never jumps ahead on its own. It will not send a checkout or booking link during qualification, even if the prospect asks for "the link" early; it keeps the conversation on track and gets there properly.
Timing and message bursts
If you set a Reply Delay, the agent waits before answering, and the wait restarts each time another message arrives. A prospect who sends five quick texts gets one reply that addresses all five. Without a delay, the agent replies right away. Either way, replies can arrive as more than one bubble, the way a person texts, and links always arrive in their own message.
When the ball is in the prospect's court
After the agent sends a link or asks a question, it waits. It does not double-text, chase, or re-pitch while the prospect is deciding. If the prospect goes quiet for good, the inactivity timeout you set on Automation eventually marks them a Lost Lead. Silence from the agent after a link is sent is not a bug; it is deliberate restraint.
Objections, questions, and tangents
- Questions about your offer: the agent answers from what you configured: the offer's details, pricing, FAQs, and additional context. If the answer is not in there, it says it does not have that detail rather than inventing one. This is why filling in offer FAQs pays off directly.
- Objections ("too expensive", "not sure I have time"): the agent acknowledges the concern, offers one genuine reframe grounded in your offer, and checks whether that was the real blocker. It does not repeat the same counterargument twice, and it does not badger.
- Off-topic messages: a random tangent gets a friendly brush-off and a gentle return to the conversation. A prospect who does nothing but throw curveballs eventually gets disqualified.
- "Stop messaging me": an explicit request to be left alone is different from an objection, and the agent treats it that way. The conversation ends immediately as Disqualified and nothing is sent back. See When a prospect opts out.
- Price questions on Book Call agents: if your goal is booking a call, the agent deliberately keeps price for the call and steers the conversation there. Close Sale agents discuss price openly using your offer's configured pricing.
The rules the agent always follows
A few behaviors are built in and cannot be configured away:
- It never invents facts about you or your offer.
- It never claims personal feelings or lived experience. Asked directly whether it is a bot, it answers with the role you gave it rather than pretending to be a specific human.
- It respects your do-nots, conversation rules, and prohibited characters on every single reply.
- When it cannot answer confidently or the situation needs judgment, it stops and hands the conversation to you instead of improvising. See When your agent hands a conversation to you.